


black out days

by but_seriously



Category: The Great (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M, tumblr askbox fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25289788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/but_seriously/pseuds/but_seriously
Summary: Upon Chekhov’s orders, Catherine is confined to bed. Peter sets about cheering her.
Relationships: Catherine/Peter III, Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine II of Russia/Pyotr III Fyodorovich | Peter III of Russia
Comments: 18
Kudos: 160





	black out days

**Author's Note:**

> this was a prompt i got on tumblr! so i thought why not, let's post this up here since it's long enough.
> 
> please comment and let me know what you think.

**day one**

Catherine is carried into the palace, screaming treason.

Lady Svenska is nowhere to be found.

That is all she remembers before Chekhov puts her under.

* * *

**day two**

It’s a mundane sort of day in Russia where hunting is cancelled because of the pounding rain and nothing exciting happens except for Velementov accidentally tripping face-first over Marial’s dog, right into the ridiculously cream-frothed cake Peter wanted to have for breakfast.

In bed.

Despite the fact that Velementov had been pestering him all week to look over some maritime reforms, and Orlo had been pestering him about - he can’t remember. It’s Orlo. Who the fuck listens to Orlo?

“I, for one, think you should lend a more attentive ear,” Catherine mutters as she turns a page in her book.

“That’s because lending you books is the closest he will ever come to grazing a woman’s hand,” Peter points out, mouth full of cream. “How’s your ankle?”

“I can twitch it to the right with only excruciating pain.”

Peter eyes her bandaged foot. “And the left?”

“It is as if I am paralysed.”

“Interesting.”

“Indeed.”

“Is it just me,” Peter asks as he feeds her some cake, “or do you sound terribly bored?”

Catherine swats the spoon away. “No, Peter, I am just tired. I cannot imagine anything more delightful than having to spend four bed-ridden days-–”

“Five,” Chekhov, who they had managed to successfully ignore for the past hour, says from one corner.

“ _Five_ bed-ridden days in the embrace of your apartments. With you.” Catherine smiles sweetly. “In it.”

“It is very strange how there was a sudden, awful smell coming from your room.” Peter says, observing a crumb studiously.

“Hmm.”

“Your _hmm_ sounds rather displeased.”

“Merely contemplative.”

Peter narrows his eyes. “Are you sure? I sense as if–-”

“You sense nothing. Perhaps it’s the reading material.” Catherine lowers her book. “It’s getting quite confusing.”

“Do you have a headache?” His question sounds a bit garbled because he’s pulling a spoon out of his mouth. “Chekhov!”

Chekhov waltzes over to her, back of his hand ready to gauge her temperature, which Catherine deflects as quickly as she had Peter’s spoon. “I am _fine_. _Please_ stop hovering.”

“I will not,” Chekhov says, and strolls back to his seat.

Peter stops licking cream off his thumb and focuses his entire attention on her. “What is wrong, Empress? Is it the book? I _have_ told you that Orlo is as dull as wet rocks - I will lend you some of my erotica.”

“No, I…” Catherine bites her lip, deliberating, before rolling her eyes. “It’s this word. Here. It doesn’t make sense syntactically, and I know my Russian comprehension is advanced.”

Peter looks to where she’s pointing and says, “Oh, that’s because you’re probably reading it wrong. The /за/ changes it into the instrumental case.”

Catherine stares at him. “You know grammar.”

“Mother used to bite chunks out of me if I stuttered during my revisions. Do _not_ ask for Aunt Lisbeth’s recount of it; she will only lie and say I am exaggerating but it was the unadulterated truth and I still have proof of it.” He shakes back his sleeve. “Look.”

Catherine ignores the rather vicious-looking scar to ask, a bit suspiciously, “You are not jesting. So this man here is not actually running?”

“No, he is chasing moonshine.”

“What does that even mean?”

“That, my pure little wife, means drinking vodka.” Peter lifts his glass and grins. “Bit like that poetry you like, isn’t it?”

“Not really…” Catherine says, looking at him from the corner of her eye before returning to her book. “But it comes close.”

* * *

**day three**

Catherine wakes to sunshine filtering in through the curtains a maid has already pulled open. She stares longingly at the sprawling green, the effervescent sky, the loll of bodies dotting the estate like wildflowers.

“It’s a perfect day for a picnic!” Peter announces as he’s getting dressed. He looks at her for agreement as a serf does his buttons.

“It is,” Catherine says. Miserably.

“Chin up, Catherine. Want me to eat your pussy?”

“I–” Catherine swallows. “Chekhov says I’m not to be moved.”

“That is true.”

“Fuck off,” Peter snaps at the omnipresent doctor. “That is a pity. What will cheer you then?”

“Growing wings and flying far, far away,” Catherine says wistfully, eyes glazing over. She snaps back to reality. “Only - only because I am starting to feel claustrophobic.”

“Hm.” Peter mulls this over. “Very well. If you cannot go outdoors for a picnic, I shall bring the picnic to you.”

Catherine barely has time to utter a bewildered _What?_ before Peter is already marching out the door with one boot unlaced, serf stumbling after him, hollering orders.

–-

“He’s acting strange,” Marial mutters as she spreads the blanket usually reserved for lounging on grass onto the bed, carefully tucking it under Catherine’s foot. “Strange- _er_. Did I jostle–sorry. But look at him.”

“He’s certainly… chipper.” Catherine winces when the bed dips as Marial starts artfully placing fruit, bread, and various cheeses and dried meat around her. She takes a deep breath through her nostrils, leveling herself through the pain, before saying, “He’s been like this since he’s been sick.”

“Figures a near death experience would shake him out of his arseholery.” Marial straightens the blanket. “Fucker.”

Catherine shushes her; Peter strides into the room. 

“Is it ready? Brilliant.” Peter clambers onto the bed with surprising care, not disturbing Catherine’s ankle one bit. Marial gives a stiff curtsey and makes for a quick exit, but she never quite makes it to the door, because Peter asks her to stay.

“What?” Catherine blinks.

“What?” Marial asks.

“Yes, stay. Catherine’s been cooped up too long with Orlo’s books which is a frightfully more effective sleeping draught than anything Chekhov can concoct. Come trade stories of the court with us.”

He motions at the bed.

“Us?” Catherine mouths.

“I, uh - sir,” Marial fidgets. “What makes you think - I am just–-”

“Please,” Peter scoffs. “You had the sharpest ears and most vicious tongue when you were one of us.”

Marial’s cheeks flame red. Catherine disguises a laugh as a cough.

“Cheese tart?” Peter holds up in offer, before getting distracted by a particularly delectable piece of fig.

After a short bout of nonverbal exchange with Catherine, Marial finally, finally, _gingerly_ sits a corner of herself onto the very foot of Peter’s bed. She wordlessly accepts the wine he passes her, and when he’s not looking shoots a confounded look at Catherine.

Catherine can only shrug, helplessly.

“How’s your father?” Peter asks, mouth full of bread and meat.

“Still shoveling shit,” Marial answers politely, holding her cheese tart.

“Brilliant. Glad he’s getting the hang of things. You are comfortable where we’ve placed you?”

Marial smiles thinly, still holding her cheese tart. “I can think of a few less comfortable places.”

“Nothing a new bed can’t change,” Peter dismisses. “Get Alexei to look into it for you. You know him? Warty fellow.”

“Are you going to eat your cheese tart?” Catherine asks, after getting over her own heart attack.

Marial puts it into her mouth but doesn’t chew it.

“Oh,” Peter says, before he forgets. “Chekhov, come have some of this cheese, you dusty cunt.”

-–

Marial sneaks back into Peter’s bedroom when he’s taking his evening bath and hisses, “However it is you’re fucking him, keep doing it.”

Catherine drops her pamphlet in shock. “Marial, I am _immobilised_. A _conveniently_ clumsy Lady Svenska _smashed a ball_ right into my ankle. Do you really think I would be spreading my legs so easily?”

“Well what the _fuck_ is going on?”

Catherine waves her hands inarticulately. “ _You_ tell me.”

“DOOR!”

Marial shoots Catherine one last look before scurrying out of there.

* * *

**day four**

The days go by in a flurry of activities.

One night Peter throws a party in his quarters, something of a pre-celebration to Catherine’s ankle healing soon. Catherine doesn’t see the point of it, but then again she doesn’t see the point of many things Peter does, and resolves to just smile through it.

It is surprisingly entertaining - Aunt Lisbeth brings aboard some acrobats at such short notice, and she is swathed in jewellery; draped in glittering, lush shawls, recent gifts from the Ottomans; perfumed and powdered; comfortable against gargantuan jewel-coloured cushions. She feels as if she sits upon a throne. Marial is there, predictably left out of the festivities, but Catherine notices Peter turning a blind eye when she accepts some pepper vodka from Archie.

Peter plays her a tune on his violin and with enough vodka (carefully monitored by Chekhov, who has been put in a ridiculous hat) she finds herself one of the most exuberant in applauding.

Leo regales the room with tales of rapture and romance and renegade Knights, his eyes careful not to linger on hers for too long. She feels every look like a blade. 

She doesn’t even mind when Peter sits by her as she is being bathed by two maids in a portable copper tub, jibbering excitedly about the highlights of the night.

“You enjoyed it?” he asks, a bit too earnestly.

“Yes,” she answers, surprising herself. “It was fun.”

Peter looks down at his shoes, grinning. “Huzzah.” 

He watches carefully as she is lowered into bed, and only then instructs for the candles to be put out.

“I do not know why you are complaining,” Peter says as he climbs in next to her. “I wouldn’t mind being in bed all day. It sounds fucking relaxing.”

“Some days aren’t so bad,” Catherine concedes, fluffing her pillow. “Good night, husband.”

“Good night, wife.”

* * *

**day five**

It is almost time.

Her imprisonment is almost at its end.

She slaps her just-finished book down onto the sizable stack next to her with a finality that seemed to echo through the room. 

Five days in Peter’s bed was not five days of discomfort; of course his bed would be more plush, more decadent than hers, but she missed the simple luxuries that reminded herself of who she was amidst this chaos of Russian court life. Her mother’s pearl-handled comb. Her favourite paintings. The detailed espionage hidden behind the large tapestry that she, Orlo and Marial had spent the better part of three days organising. 

She missed lounging around in the sunshine, watching birds flap across the sky. The feeling of wind in her hair.

Which is why she was up particularly early that morning, having read through the sunrise. Chekhov wasn’t even there yet. She was surprised - she almost thought he’d slept there, by the way his droll face greeted her everytime she awakened.

Peter is a wool-covered lump beside her. He’d gravitated closer towards her in the night, and she finds she doesn’t mind the warmth.

He stirs, blinking in the first rays of the morning light. “Catherine?”

“It looks to be a _beautiful_ day,” she trills, turning her ankle in slow circles. A bit of residual pain, but she could _limp_ at the very least. Bask in the garden, read poetry in the sunshine, and figure out a way to get Lady Svenska back during smash bottles. Maybe she’d lose her footing? No, that was a bit too obvio–-

“S’it morning already?” Peter asks thickly. “That went by very fast.”

“Not fast enough for me,” Catherine says, turning wide eyes to the windows that she’d asked not to be shuttered that night. It had been colder than usual, and she was glad for Peter’s furnace-like feet, but she’d wanted to see evidence of her impending freedom with her own eyes.

Plus, some time away from Peter would be nice. He must be bored enough already–she certainly is quite ready to be done with the picnics and the teas and the parties and the reading sessions–-

Wait.

Reading sessions.

Peter had scheduled reading sessions with Orlo, and had even ordered a new set of books she wanted when Orlo said he couldn’t find it in his library. They’d arrived that very afternoon, and she’d spent hours analysing footnotes with Orlo whilst Peter very badly hid how much he was snoozing.

Her eyes narrow. 

“Shame,” Peter says, and breaks out into a massive yawn. “But at least there’s your party to celebrate your healing. I’ve called for a bear.”

“Bears are still a sore spot for me,” she reminds him.

“Right.” Peter rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Two bears then?”

Catherine snorts quietly. Her husband was an idiot, but at least he was a somewhat… _nice_ idiot. Sort of.

She shifts in bed, delighting at how much easier it is now. She will never again be complacent around Lady Svenska.

“Today’s the day. I know it. I dreamt of it last night,” she tells him. “I am finally ready for some strenuous activity!” She almost seems to vibrate in the bed sheets.

“Marvelous,” Peter cheers sleepily. “Shall I eat your pussy?”

“I–” Catherine stares at him for a beat, before saying: “Alright.”

**fin**

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: **peter/catherine** \+ _can we just stay in bed?_
> 
> i'm @ highgaarden on tumblr!


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